‘The worst day of my life:’ Texas’ Hill Country reels as deaths rise due to floods

Transcript:

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

The news from Central Texas, where heavy July Fourth rains caused flash flooding, continues to be grim. The number of deaths has risen to more than 50, according to state officials. Most of those so far in Kirk County, according to the county sheriff. Many more people remain missing. NPR’s Sergio Martínez-Beltrán has been in Kirk County for the last few days, and he joins us now. Good morning.

SERGIO MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN, BYLINE: Hi, Ayesha.

RASCOE: Can you tell us what’s the latest on this catastrophic weather event?

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Catastrophic is the operating word here, Ayesha. You know, we know that this is still an evolving situation, despite it happening more than 48 hours ago. The number of dead in Kirk County includes 28 adults and 15 children. And unfortunately, that number is likely to go up because there’s still a lot of people missing.

RASCOE: You’ve been talking to folks in Kerrville, Texas. How do they describe what’s happened in the last two days?

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Well, Ryan Dale is the one person I’d like for you to hear describe what he and others lived in the early hours of Friday.

RYAN DALE: It was terrifying. It looked straight out of a horror movie.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Dale was in his apartment with his three children. The building is right next to the Kerrville River Trail along the Guadalupe River, which officials say rose more than 25 feet in about an hour.

DALE: And I was sitting there, and I was just stressed out all night, looking at the rain coming down. And I came out of my house about 6 o’clock, and it was about 100 yards out from the apartment, and you couldn’t see any of this down here. And then I came out 15 minutes later, and it was smacking the side of the apartment, getting up over the fence.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Dale grabbed his kids and started running away.

DALE: And I could just hear people screaming, and (crying) it scared me, you know? It’s hard to see. It really is.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: All of his family is safe and accounted for, and luckily, his apartment is OK, too. But not everybody had the same experience. About 6 miles west, there’s a cluster of RV parks also alongside the Guadalupe River. And as soon as you get there, you realize the magnitude of this weather event. Part of it is because of how empty it is. Most of the RVs and cabins were swept away, and the few that are still there are destroyed.

Hi, my name is Sergio. I’m a reporter.

I meet Melvin Harris here. He’s covered in mud. He says he was in his RV with his wife when they were woken up by neighbors knocking on their door, telling them…

MELVIN HARRIS: Get out, get out. There’s – it’s flooding. And I thought, well, hell, I’ve seen it flood before. I never even thought of getting that damn high. But yeah, of course, it washed the motorhome away, washed both of our cars away. And we got out with our dogs and the clothes on our back and that’s it.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Harris says that by the time they got out of their motorhome, the water was already waist-deep.

HARRIS: We had friends that were camped up the road here, and they didn’t make it. So this has been very devastating. I don’t know that we’ll – this place will ever recover from what happened. We’ll just have to see. But I’m not ever going to live this close to water ever again, not ever.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Harris and his wife are now homeless. They moved here two years ago after Harris retired. This is all they had, and now all of it is gone. The couple is now left to clean up and save whatever they can. Another couple walks nearby. They don’t want to be recorded, nor identified, but they told me they were staying at this same park with their adult son, daughter and son-in-law. When the family ran away to evacuate, everybody made it out except for the daughter and son-in-law. They are still missing. The pain in their eyes – I won’t forget. Harris, the man who lost his RV here, is very mindful of how lucky he’s been. The helicopters doing search-and-rescue missions are a reminder of that.

HARRIS: I just feel for all the people that are missing ’cause there’s still a bunch.

RASCOE: So among the missing are 27 girls who were at a Christian summer camp along the river. What can you tell us about that?

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Yes, so it’s called Camp Mystic, and it’s a big part in the community. It’s been around for nearly 100 years. I went there yesterday, and parts of it were washed away. And the area around it is completely destroyed, Ayesha. Huge trees are down, boulders are in the middle of the road, homes completely decimated. I mean, the only thing left is their foundation. All of this, a reminder of how violent the flash floods were on Friday morning.

Now, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has said the search-and-rescue operations continue 24/7. Hundreds of state workers from different agencies are assisting, as well as the Texas National Guard and the U.S. Coast Guard. But without a doubt, this is one of the worst floods in Texas history and one that will transform the community forever.

RASCOE: That’s NPR’s Sergio Martínez-Beltrán in Texas Hill Country. Thank you so much for your reporting.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: You’re welcome.